Last week’s scripture and sermon focused on how people tend to think of eternal life as a future “age to come”, while Jesus brought the concept of “that age” as a way of living that can transform “this age”. In the passage this week, Paul is addressing some people who thought of their Christian life as something that would really occur at the return of Christ (that age), and were therefore living in “idleness” in this age — …. What is Paul meaning when he uses the Greek word that is often translated as “idle” (it can also be described as disorderly or disruptive)? What does it mean to “work” in the church? I am reminded of Bonhoeffer’s notion of “cheap grace”….. What message does this offer for our “modern age” and how we find meaning (or not) through a work beyond ourselves?